Hidden Treasures- Fun with Older Sets

L'Adair

I decided to revisit the BRC Serenity set to see if I could improve on the windows. Long story short, I could not. I pretty much spent the day discovering numerous ways how "not to create a lightbulb," (National Treasure dialog reference...) It didn't help anything that I discovered I had not saved the original Serenity scene! Very unlike me. I usually have several versions of any given scene backed up. Needless to say, these images are not at the came camera angle as the first one.

Here are some comparison images using different shaders. I converted the set to Iray using both the previous Iray Uver Base, and the version shipping with the latest version of Daz Studio. (I could see no difference between the two.) And then I applied the Architectural Shader Base. Whoa! That shader is quit a bit different. Lighting the window was done differently, and I ended up making it brighter. this first image compares the three shaders side-by-side. I should also mention, the Ghost Lights are the same in all the images.
 

 

At this point, I prefer to not use the Architectural base shader. The shader makes everything overly shiny and reflective. I ended up tweaking the settings and adding the diffuse images into the bump parameter. Here is a comparison:
 

On the left is the Iray Uber Base, (no bump images,) and on the right is the Architectural base, (with bump images.) Although the windows are brighter, the architectural base half of the image is darker overall, and some of the trim details are washed out.

The last image is the redo, with the diffuse images added to the bump parameter, from as weak as 1.0 on the flat ceiling surface facing the camera to 5.0 on the back wall.

FenixPhoenix

kyoto kid said:

..cute, I like that. 

That is about the extent of post that I do.

For those who don't have PS, Gimp and Krita can also produce similar effects.

Thanks! Yeah, I usually tweak the light in lightroom & photoshop since it's faster than trying to get it how I want it in DAZ. I also always end up fixing the eyes and just painting a bit ontop of the render.

FenixPhoenix

L'Adair said:

At this point, I prefer to not use the Architectural base shader. The shader makes everything overly shiny and reflective. I ended up tweaking the settings and adding the diffuse images into the bump parameter. Here is a comparison:

Yeah, that's what I noticed too in my latest experiment (Mirador). Architectural Base turned it into SUPER polished marble, almost! I'm thinking it might look good applied to metal if you're going for a shiny look. Otherwise, Uberbase might be a better choice unless you tweak the architectural base. However, I'm not sure why, but with the Arch.Base, adding the bump/normal maps, turned out way different than adding those maps (same settings and light) to the Uberbase. I'll make a comparison again, just in case I messed up more with the ArchBase set without realizing.

Linwelly

giselle3000 said:

Alright, so I need to stop doing so many comparison renders because... at some point I lose track of which settings I'm using and I feel like crying D:. Anyways, here's DM Mirador.

As always I'll separate/organize things a bit, like:

1. Out of the Box Batch
2. N.G.S. Anagenessis 2 - Revolution inclusion Batch (N.G.S. for short)
3. Best Result

Things to consider:

• All of this are lighted the same way, which is with an HDRI iradiance map and nothing else.

First set:

• Render converting the original materials into Iray via Uberbase.
• Second render converting the original materials into Iray via Uber Architecture (which I just found today -_-).
• Third render tweaking the settings for Uber Architecture by lowering reflectivity and glossy settings.
• Thoughts: First render seems to make the materials a bit flat, making light bounce off the surface. Second render seems to transformed everything into REALLY polished marble. Third render looks a bit better, but everything's washout. I suspect there's something that's handling the stone like metals.

Second Set:

• This shows Uberbase transformed materials + Bump (dialed to 20) & Normal Maps (dialed to 2) created in Photoshop.
• Thoughts: Though the maps create interesting and more realistic surfaces (rough rock) I don't like how washout things look.

Third Set:

• This shows Uberbase transformed materials + Bump (dialed to 20) & Normal Maps (dialed to 2) created in Photoshop + Shader Setting from Ingenious Rock Shaders.
• Thoughts: Colorwise this looks MUCH better. I like how old it looks and the maps work very well in creating pores on the surfaces. Can't seem to make those stairs work (or at least the sideview of them break the realism).

Fourth Set:

• This shows Uberbase Architecture transformed materials + Bump (dialed to 20) & Normal Maps (dialed to 2) created in Photoshop + Shader Setting from Ingenious Rock Shaders.
• Ignore the tag on the FIRST render of this set. Forgot to change it. This is the same render shown above, which shows the Uber Architecture + Maps but WITHOUT the shader settings.
• Thoughts: The stone looks a lot rougher, and it's interesting how the floor now looks "wet" or like it's stained. It's a much whethered look, but it has a cool vibe to it.

Comparison render:

Nice work on this, I got that set some weeks ago when they had a blow out of the older stuff but didn't get to work with it yet

JamesJAB

Here's a little render that I did using the Hot Tub set.
The road and sidewalk are just primatives with shaders added.

Here is the same render without depth of field.

L'Adair

JamesJAB said:

Here's a little render that I did using the Hot Tub set.
The road and sidewalk are just primatives with shaders added.

Here is the same render without depth of field.

Very nice. I like both images, but the one with DOF actually draws the eye more to the set. (Did the camera settings affect the light on the car and figure, or did you do that via lighting or post...? I really like the effect.)

FenixPhoenix

@Linwelly, thanks! I think all DM sets are amazing! I actually got dark rites after you posted a render here. Haven't had time to play with that one yet, but the amount of detail modeled into each thing makes it easy to work with. Or rather, makes it easy to look good even with little adjustments!

@JamesJAB, nice render! Did you convert the set via Uberbase? Or Uberbase architecture? Or none?

JamesJAB

L'Adair said:

JamesJAB said:

Here's a little render that I did using the Hot Tub set.
The road and sidewalk are just primatives with shaders added.

Here is the same render without depth of field.

Very nice. I like both images, but the one with DOF actually draws the eye more to the set. (Did the camera settings affect the light on the car and figure, or did you do that via lighting or post...? I really like the effect.)

Both are untouched renders.  The one with Depth of Field enabled, I also adjusted the bloom setting.

@giselle3000 The only material I changed was the hill that the set sits on, everything else is default.

JamesJAB

Here's the Hot tub set from another angle

FenixPhoenix

JamesJAB said:

Here's the Hot tub set from another angle

Nice, @JamesJAB! I'm wondering now how that wood would look with some bump/normal maps. By any chance, does the set have different surface textures? Or does it come packaged with only one big diffuse map? (I've found older models only come with 1 or 2 diffuse maps, which makes it hard to re-shade.)

FenixPhoenix

I did a comission recently and needed to use Bar Interior, so I decided to also render out the comparisons to share them here (despite this one not being a super old product).

General:

• I turned the lights provided into emissive on all three renders. Unlike other products, this one already includes normal & bump maps (which is great). Most details on the wood are carved in, which means it looks great even without messing with it.
• Ghost lights: I used three ghost lights to help lighten up the scene for faster rendering. One on the ceiling looking down, another near the door on the back. One more behind the camera. All of them have a slight yellow tint. First two renders are set to 100 lumens, but the last render I cranked them up to 150-170 (because everything darkened when I used NGS).

First render:

• Is the scene as is. I didn't mess with it (not even to include the Uberbase).
• The only thing I did alter was to turn the lights into emissive so I could get some light (apart from the ghostlights).
• Thoughts: it looks pretty good & renders fast. However, some part of the wood seem to have way too much glossiness. While the benches and tables look dull. (I also forgot to change the materials on one of the stools).

Second render:

• Duplicated one of the lamps and placed it in the last windowpane between the benches to provide more light.
• I replaced the wallpaper with one of the presents in Homestyle Iray Shaders.
• Used Mec4d PBS Shaders vol.1 for Iray to replace all the copper parts.
• For some reason, when I borrowed the marble shaders of a shader pack (without replacing the maps), I got a super dark marble. Same thing happened with the floor (on the decorative strip). I also used the marble setting on the tiles on the floor and forgot to reset the tiling back to 1.00 (the marble shaders sets it to 5)
• I used Decorator Kit: Neutral Shader Presets to get the setting for the wood (without replacing the original maps).
• Reshaded all the glass materials (including the bottles) with Iray Glass Shaders.
• For the leather seats, I borrowed the setting from one Leather and Vinyl Shaders for Luxus (which is a freebie over at shareCG) by @Slosh (opting to keep the original maps).
• Thoughts: I like the muted tone of the wood better than in the previous one. It makes the bar look fancier. The black marble look on the countertop also looks rather good. On the other hand, we've lost some of the contrast.

Third render:

• Applied N.G.S. freebie script on everything that was wood (which is mostly everything) & the leather cushions. I dialed down the translucency weight to 0.25 on all the surfaces affected by NGS. Then I replaced the diffuse map (which NGS places in the bump map) with the original bump map & cranked it up to 15. The normal map I cranked up to 1.00. As you can see, I forgot to select the stools closer to the camera, so those ones don't have the original bump map.
• I applied NGS to the decorative strip on the floor, with high brightness (this needs fixing, because it looks way too bright).
• I replaced the marble on the bar with the preset called elegant emperor.
• I fixed the tiling on the floor.
• I cranked up the lights and change the temperature so it gave a warmer tint.
• Lowered the opacity in the glass pane between the benches (from 100 to 50).
• Thoughts: I like the look of this way better than the previous two renders. By no means is the setting perfect. The overall floor needs more work in order to look better, for example. I suspect it might look better to replace the floor completely with one of the marble shaders so that it fits better with the wallpaper. I also prefer the leather cushions from the second render rather than the version with NGS applied. But I'm convienced that wood benefits the most out of NGS. On the downside, rendering takes way longer. 

L'Adair

To be honest, I think all three look good, but in different ways.

A little trick I use with sets like these is to replace multiples with instances. For example, I'd select one stool and create eight instances. To place the instanced stools in the same locations as the others, I'd move the original stools into the group with the instances. Then one by one, use ctrl+c (copy) on a stool, then ctrl+v (paste) on the instance, until each instance was in the same location as the original stool it's replacing. After that, I'd delete the redundant stools. Then when changing materials, I only need to deal with one object.

The downside of that tip is if you parent an object on the original—a person sitting at the bar, for example—all the instances will have that object too.

Edit: I've since learned that instances have a parameter to choose between "Parent and Child" or "Parent." Selecting Parent for the instances will allow you to place a person on the original stool, for example, without that person sitting on all the other stools.

L'Adair

My most recent render uses a few old gems: Build A Scene, Pond Builder - Base, and Victorian House. Here's a small version for reference, (with a link to the gallery page if you'd like to see it larger.)

Link

---

In spite of the Victorian House being in the background, I put a lot of work into the curtains, creating both a transparency map for cutout opacity and a higher contrast diffuse map for Emissive Color. The curtains are a separate object from the house and consist of a single poly for each window. By using the Geometry Editor Tool, I was able to create a separate material zone for the curtains of each window I wanted lit. I also made the glass in the door emissive. Other than apply Iray Uber Base, I did nothing else to the Victorian House for the above image.

The rest of this post is on the Victorian House. Here are several clay renders to show the details. While there is a lot of detail modeled in, the siding uses perfectly flat planes, depending on the image maps to provide the tongue-in-groove siding appearance. The same is true of the roof and shingles.

---

---

 

That door is amazing. All that detail modeled in! Look at that door handle! On so many levels, I really love some of these older sets.

---

---

Here's the above front entrance with default textures and my emissive changes.

Notice the design on the upper sections of glass in the bay windows. That is achieved with the opacity map, and ends up lost when applying an Iray glass shader. The same is true of a diagonal grid over the upper story round windows.

---

Here's a front view of the whole house with the Iray Uber Base. My emissive changes have been removed, and the thin glass shader has been applied to all the windows

---

And same view with bump at 2.0, using the textures in the bump parameter, for everything except the windows.

---

And finally, here is the house in a complete render. (I may switch out the current image later. This was set up to use Ultrascatter for the lawn, but the 6/29/2017 update broke it. I'm pretty sure there won't be a fix until after the 4th of July, when the DAZ folks get back from a long holiday weekend.)

---

I wonder if it would be worth the effort to apply NGS Anagenessis 2 to the roof...? All of the pitched roof is one material zone, except for the the bit over the bay window, upstairs, our left. It would be easy enough to create a new material zone for it with the Geometry Editor Tool...

RGcincy

L'Adair - you made that Victorian house look really good in Iray!

L'Adair

RGcincy said:

L'Adair - you made that Victorian house look really good in Iray!

Thank you, RGincy. I really didn't do a lot to it, though, for the purpose of this thread. I think one could do a lot with this model—with some shaders, the Geometry Editor Tool,  and a bit of creative thinking.

L'Adair

Okay. One more render of the Victorian House. I used N.G.S. Anagenessis on the roof, and I put back the window details with the help of a geometry shell:

As I expected, N.G.S. Anagenessis darkened the roof considerably, but I'm not convinced it makes the roof any more realistic.

I like the diagonal grill on the uppermost windows, but the leaded glass on the all the bay windows competes with the curtains. The image links to the larger image, where you can see the window detail much better. Adding back the detail is really simple to do, though. Create a geometry shell of the house and in Parameters switch all the surfaces of the shell to off except for the main switch and all of the surfaces that end with _glass. Select those surfaces and apply the Iray Uber Base, then set cutout opacity to 1.0. Using your mouse, select and copy from the house surfaces, the settings from each non-glass surface that corresponds to the glass surface. For example, select bay_l_win and copy that surface to the bay_l_win_glass surface of the geometry shell. Now for each of those surfaces, you want to add the opacity map into the cutout opacity setting. If you prefer, you can do what I did: select all the _glass surfaces in the geometry shell. Apply an Iray metal shader, (I used brass from Mec4D's vol 1 PBS shaders,) and then add in the opacity maps.

JamesJAB

Arcadia Colonnade with no changes to the surface materials.
I did however rotate the grass to face the camera on the second render.

L'Adair

JamesJAB said:

Arcadia Colonnade with no changes to the surface materials.
I did however rotate the grass to face the camera on the second render.

 

How did you get two of th set side by side? Is that a reflection, or simply two instances of the set (whether by loading twice, duplcating or creating an instance...)?

Regardless of how you did it, I find this image very intriguing. Great job.

JamesJAB

L'Adair said:

JamesJAB said:

Arcadia Colonnade with no changes to the surface materials.
I did however rotate the grass to face the camera on the second render.

 

How did you get two of th set side by side? Is that a reflection, or simply two instances of the set (whether by loading twice, duplcating or creating an instance...)?

Regardless of how you did it, I find this image very intriguing. Great job.

One of the load sets brings up three of them side by side with some variation.

FenixPhoenix

L'Adair said:

 Victorian House

---

In spite of the Victorian House being in the background, I put a lot of work into the curtains, creating both a transparency map for cutout opacity and a higher contrast diffuse map for Emissive Color. The curtains are a separate object from the house and consist of a single poly for each window. By using the Geometry Editor Tool, I was able to create a separate material zone for the curtains of each window I wanted lit. I also made the glass in the door emissive. Other than apply Iray Uber Base, I did nothing else to the Victorian House for the above image.

Notice the design on the upper sections of glass in the bay windows. That is achieved with the opacity map, and ends up lost when applying an Iray glass shader. The same is true of a diagonal grid over the upper story round windows.

---

That looks great, L'Adair! I've never used the geometry editor. Does that mean you can create several material zones based on the diffuse (even if there's nothing modled into it?)

FenixPhoenix

JamesJAB said:

Arcadia Colonnade with no changes to the surface materials.
I did however rotate the grass to face the camera on the second render.

This looks awesome! I'm surprised the leaves look so good without doing anything to them! Did you also added the water (it looks like a waterfall) inside Daz or is that post?

JamesJAB

giselle3000 said:

JamesJAB said:

Arcadia Colonnade with no changes to the surface materials.
I did however rotate the grass to face the camera on the second render.

This looks awesome! I'm surprised the leaves look so good without doing anything to them! Did you also added the water (it looks like a waterfall) inside Daz or is that post?

It is the Heavy Rain set in the store.
Here's another render that I did using the 3D Toon Clouds for the fog effect.

FenixPhoenix

JamesJAB said:

It is the Heavy Rain set in the store.
Here's another render that I did using the 3D Toon Clouds for the fog effect.

Oh, wow! Not sure how I missed the Heavy Rain product! How much does it increase render time? (I'm wondering if it's more time effective to just do post-work for rain).

You know, I wasn't interested in the 3D Toon Clouds until people started sharing creative ways to use it. I thought for sure, you'd used post work to create that fog. Might reconsider the toon clouds... argh, so many new things I want though! I've got my cart loaded with some of the poses (most all of them from @Muscleman, since they are AMAZING) that went on sale today.

FenixPhoenix

giselle3000 said:

I did a comission recently and needed to use Bar Interior, so I decided to also render out the comparisons to share them here (despite this one not being a super old product).

---

• Applied N.G.S. freebie script on everything that was wood (which is mostly everything) & the leather cushions. I dialed down the translucency weight to 0.25 on all the surfaces affected by NGS. Then I replaced the diffuse map (which NGS places in the bump map) with the original bump map & cranked it up to 15. The normal map I cranked up to 1.00. As you can see, I forgot to select the stools closer to the camera, so those ones don't have the original bump map.
• I applied NGS to the decorative strip on the floor, with high brightness (this needs fixing, because it looks way too bright).
• I replaced the marble on the bar with the preset called elegant emperor.
• Reshaded the floor with the elegant emperor preset.
• I cranked up the lights and change the temperature so it gave a warmer tint.
• Lowered the opacity in the glass pane between the benches (from 100 to 50).
• Fix the leather on the cushions.

Thought I'd shared the result of applying all the changes above:

JamesJAB

giselle3000 said:

JamesJAB said:

It is the Heavy Rain set in the store.
Here's another render that I did using the 3D Toon Clouds for the fog effect.

Oh, wow! Not sure how I missed the Heavy Rain product! How much does it increase render time? (I'm wondering if it's more time effective to just do post-work for rain).

You know, I wasn't interested in the 3D Toon Clouds until people started sharing creative ways to use it. I thought for sure, you'd used post work to create that fog. Might reconsider the toon clouds... argh, so many new things I want though! I've got my cart loaded with some of the poses (most all of them from @Muscleman, since they are AMAZING) that went on sale today.

Heavy rain loads as one giant area.  It is divided into a grid where you can turn off sections, and only have what you need visible.

L'Adair

giselle3000 said:

L'Adair said:

 Victorian House

---

In spite of the Victorian House being in the background, I put a lot of work into the curtains, creating both a transparency map for cutout opacity and a higher contrast diffuse map for Emissive Color. The curtains are a separate object from the house and consist of a single poly for each window. By using the Geometry Editor Tool, I was able to create a separate material zone for the curtains of each window I wanted lit. I also made the glass in the door emissive. Other than apply Iray Uber Base, I did nothing else to the Victorian House for the above image.

Notice the design on the upper sections of glass in the bay windows. That is achieved with the opacity map, and ends up lost when applying an Iray glass shader. The same is true of a diagonal grid over the upper story round windows.

---

That looks great, L'Adair! I've never used the geometry editor. Does that mean you can create several material zones based on the diffuse (even if there's nothing modled into it?)

Not exactly. As it's name suggests, it edits the geometry. You can select portions of the mesh and assign the selection to a new surface, which is how I use it the most, and then you can apply your changes to just your new surface.

For example if you look at the last two images of the Victorian House, (separates posts,) you'll see a rock walkway. That is actually a "new surface" I created on a plane primitive, (with lots of polys as I applied a morph to make it raised.) I then used one of Mec4D's shaders on it from Vol 2. It's really rough, and I wouldn't have done it that way except I was planning on adding a lawn using Ultrascatter and expected the edge to be hidden enough the polys wouldn't be obvious.

Sometimes you'll come across a set or prop with everything shown as one material zone. I've seen hair done that way... (grrr... I mean, really, shouldn't at least the cap have a separate material zone...?) Sorry, I digress. Depending on how much detail is modeled in, it may be possible to separate different parts into their own material zones. Sometimes not. I have a pair of jeans with a belt on the texture, but it doesn't coincide with the mesh, so you leave it as is, or lose it with a shader. (Or make your own textures...)

 

L'Adair

giselle3000 said:

giselle3000 said:

I did a comission recently and needed to use Bar Interior, so I decided to also render out the comparisons to share them here (despite this one not being a super old product).

---

• Applied N.G.S. freebie script on everything that was wood (which is mostly everything) & the leather cushions. I dialed down the translucency weight to 0.25 on all the surfaces affected by NGS. Then I replaced the diffuse map (which NGS places in the bump map) with the original bump map & cranked it up to 15. The normal map I cranked up to 1.00. As you can see, I forgot to select the stools closer to the camera, so those ones don't have the original bump map.
• I applied NGS to the decorative strip on the floor, with high brightness (this needs fixing, because it looks way too bright).
• I replaced the marble on the bar with the preset called elegant emperor.
• Reshaded the floor with the elegant emperor preset.
• I cranked up the lights and change the temperature so it gave a warmer tint.
• Lowered the opacity in the glass pane between the benches (from 100 to 50).
• Fix the leather on the cushions.

Thought I'd shared the result of applying all the changes above:

The end result is... stunning!

L'Adair

@giselle3000! You should really check out Novica's recent thread on "The Material Zone." She starts it off with a tutorial on the Geometry Editor!

FenixPhoenix

L'Adair said:

@giselle3000! You should really check out Novica's recent thread on "The Material Zone." She starts it off with a tutorial on the Geometry Editor!

Awesome! Thanks for sharing the link and your knowledge! :D

JamesJAB

Here's GIS Project with Iray Daz Uber Base applied to all of the materials and then some settings tweaked.